


shellfire

by ceraunos



Series: old guard prompts [3]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Drabble, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sad and Happy, the title has no relevance other than being one word in the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:28:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27308473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceraunos/pseuds/ceraunos
Summary: ‘Her name was Quynh.’The words linger through the room, the taste of them on the air like gas seeping from a stove left on.Was Quynh. Is Quynh.It’s a semantic, and he’s tired, but even so he wonders if Nicky had noticed the way his hand had tightened on the sheets as he said it.For the prompt 'kissing knuckles'
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: old guard prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1963957
Comments: 2
Kudos: 45





	shellfire

_‘Her name was Quynh.’_

The words linger through the room, the taste of them on the air like gas seeping from a stove left on.

_Was Quynh. Is Quynh._

It’s a semantic, and he’s tired, but even so he wonders if Nicky had noticed the way his hand had tightened on the sheets as he said it.

The kettle boils with an electric wheezing. Joe thinks about the patch of grey steam-damp plaster behind it that Nicky had painted over three times in a fit of malaise between jobs. There’s still a smudge of paint pressed into a thumbprint beside the headboard of their bed, covered in a sticky layer of dust. It feels, suddenly, vitally important to remember that.

‘Here,’ Nicky says, pressing a warm mug into his hand. It smells of sharp spices from a dozen different markets, in a dozen different lifetimes. Joe realises he’s still standing in the doorway to the bedroom, caught halfway between staying and going after Andy.

‘She’ll be ok,’ Nicky murmurs, and Joe isn’t sure he knows who he’s talking about. Isn’t sure it matters. It’s an empty statement and the look on Nicky’s face says he knows as much.

‘I thought –’ Joe starts, then shakes his head. He doesn’t want to finish that line of thought; the thread of hope he’d felt like barbed wire against his throat.

Nicky’s fingers find his, thumb brushing once over his knuckles, and something inside Joe wants to howl with the unfairness of it.

‘I thought she might see something different,’ Nicky whispers, voice cracking just a little in a way that might be sleep-rough or might not.

Joe nods, and briefly the room blurs damply until he blinks. Nicky’s index finger soothes along the ridges of his thumb as he the takes the mug from him and sets it down somewhere Joe doesn’t turn to look.

He laces their hands together as he steps closer until they’re breathing in the same space and Joe can smell the sleep on him. He guides Joe’s hand up to the back of his neck, keeping it there as he tips their foreheads together.

Nicky’s skin is warm beneath his lips, short hair tickling at his ear. Joe knows they’re both thinking of Booker, of decades of haunted sleepless looks, of the screams heard through walls.

An aeroplane rumbles overhead like distant thunder. From the corner of his eye, Joe sees Booker swear as plaster crumbles into his drink. He laughs wetly and feels Nicky smile into his cheek at the sound of it.

‘We can still have hope,’ Nicky murmurs, like an unwanted confession.

Not like this, Joe thinks, the bitterness of it heavy and confused on his tongue.

_Once, not far from here, under a sky bright with shellfire, he’d stripped a faceless body for an extra pair of socks, even as his toes turned black with rot. The memory of it flashes through him without warning. It had snowed that night in a miserable muddy sleet, and he’d vomited as he’d tucked the coarse wool into his boots._

He can feel himself shiver, just a little, in Nicky’s grip. He shakes his head and the friction of his skin against Nicky’s burns.

‘I know,’ Nicky says, before Joe speaks. ‘I know.’

In the background, Booker has put on an old game; Joe recognises the commentary from a few years ago in the middle of a snowstorm somewhere in Canada when Booker had almost put a hole in the ceiling after France scored.

Nicky’s hand runs through the back of Joe’s hair fingers tangling into it and cradling him. His other hand brings Joe’s hand to his lips, still running a finger along his knuckles as if he hardly realises he’s doing it.

‘I know,’ he whispers again, pressing a kiss into the soft skin between Joe’s thumb and index and, unexpectedly, this time it feels like enough.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr [here](https://ceraunos.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thank you for reading! kudos/comments are very much loved. x


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